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HOMEOWNERS’ NEWSLETTER
In This Issue
• From the HOA Board
• Meeting Minutes
• Financials
• Meet our New Community Mgr
• Landscaping & Grounds
• New Neighbors
• Social Calendar
• Best Wishes
• Classified Ad
• Contacts—Who’s Who
Volume 6 No. 2 June — Sep 2020
Upcoming Events
Social Committee Happenings
First Tuesday of the Month
Cancelled for June, July
August—TBA
Rally in the Alley
TBA
Social Activities for September-December will be Announced
Look for an email from the Social Committee
Board of Directors Meeting
Tuesday, August 4, 6:30 pm—8:00 pm
Falcon Police Station
7850 Goddard St.
From Your 2020 Board of Directors
Welcome to summer 2020! We have certainly had an interesting and unusual springtime, haven’t we? Your Board of Directors have stayed busy despite the virus. We finalized the new Govern-ing documents for our HOA in early March and they’ve been filed with the appropriate state and local entities, and we have been working with our attorneys to get our Policies in place – as required by the State of Colorado. The Governing Docs are on the website and the Policies should be on our websites soon (Hammersmith and our Carriages at Briargate website). Please take a moment to review the policies if you can, none of them are more than a couple of pages long and they do provide some good information. In addition, Rob Fredell, our Treasurer has done some work with our Reserve funds to ensure a better return on investment (although CD rates aren’t great these days) and staggering their due dates to help with future needs. This spring has brought us 2 new residents and we would like to welcome them to our com-munity. They are Cynthia Robison and Carolyn Jewell. Please take a moment to say hello to these ladies if you see them in area.
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Notes from the 2020 Board of Directors By Patti Nelson, HOA President, Witzie Stansberry, HOA VP, & Rob Fre-dell, Secretary/Treasurer
As a reminder, as we start to enjoy our outdoors more, please be aware of our Covenants that restrict any personal items to your patio, decks, and porches (including pots/planters, garden stakes, lawn furniture, and bird feeders). No items are allowed in or on the gravel, grass, sidewalks, retaining walls, or on the patio wall cap. This is for the safety of every-one, including our landscapers, and to give our community a clean, uncluttered appearance. Thank you for your help with this!! In addition, our great ‘volunteer landscaper’, Jim Stata, has suggested a project for our commu-nity!
Adopt-a-Section at Carriages Looking for some volunteers to help with sections of Carriages to do some light land-scape maintenance. This would involve taking responsibility for small sections - picking weeds in the rocks and small amounts of policing. There have been several residents that have asked how they can help. This would help to keep expenses down as well as keep-ing our community looking great. This is strictly a volunteer effort, as some are not able to participate. If interested call Jim Stata at 630-1296. Thanks, also, to Deb Sivesind and Pat Kimbrell for their care of the roses in the area. We have a few residents who have reported that migrating bats are roosting outside their homes. We called in a professional pest control company to take a look at several houses and walked around most of the area to look for problems. While we DO seem to have this problem at a couple of homes, we have been informed that the bats and the birds in our area are protect-ed by the Division of Wildlife. Keeping outdoor lights on at night, if that is possible, seems to dis-courage the bats. They do eat a lot of bugs and mosquitos, so that is a positive effect! ALSO: Some of you may be seeing flyers about a neighborhood or community garage sale. While gar-age sales are allowed, please be aware that the board needs to be notified well in advance of that date. Since we do not have "through streets" and only have extremely limited parking, it is difficult to have the increase in traffic flow that garage sales seem to create. A few residents in our community participated in the neighborhood garage sale about 3 years ago, with mixed re-sults. The next quarterly Board meeting will be held (if allowed due to Covid-19) on Tuesday, August 4
th at 6:30 in the community room at the Falcon Police Station, 7850 Goddard St, Colorado
Springs, CO 80920. That is right behind the Wendy’s on Academy Blvd. All residents are wel-come to attend. We hope you have an enjoyable summer!
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(Continued from Page 2)
Reposting May 2020 Board of Directors Meeting Minutes
(Distributed via e-Blast on May 4th, 2020)
FINANCIAL REPORT
Financials as of April 30, 2020: Please see included report on page 4.
OLD BUSINESS
Governing documents have been filed with appropriate state & local entities.
Street re-sealing completed. The cost for this effort was about $300 per household, taken from operating expense in the budget. A big thank you to Rob Fredell and Jim Stata for monitoring this process with McDonald Paving & Chip Sealing, which saved the community about $1000 in fees from Hammersmith. Thanks, also, to Bill and Shellie Harms for allowing McDonald to use their water to clean up the run-off when the rain hit so early in the process, creating quite a mess. There are still a couple of items to be cleaned up, and that is scheduled for this week.
Roof inspection completed. This process was largely done by drones by a company from Den-ver, just as a precautionary measure since our community is about 5 years old now (or slightly older). They reported that the roofs generally look very good at this time. Good news for all of us. A more in-depth inspection will probably be scheduled for next spring, unless we have a weather occurrence this summer to justify one earlier.
NEW BUSINESS
There was a walk-through of the community on May 6 by board members and the Hammersmith manager to look for any areas that need attention on the outside of the houses this spring/summer.
COMMITTEES
Landscape: We’ve had a fairly mild winter in terms of snow removal, so we have done well on the budget for that. Jim Stata has recently tested and turned on the watering system. Keep in mind we will be under the new water restrictions imposed by Colorado Springs.
Social: Social events scheduled through July have been cancelled. The social activities for the subsequent months will be announced on a month to month basis. At this time, the Holiday luncheon in November/December time period.
Communication: If anyone has something they would like to include in the newsletter, please be in touch with Rhonda Shapiro.
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May 31, 2020 Carriages at Briargate HOA Financials
Income and Expenses
Income: As of May 31, 2020, the year-to-date income totaled $43,324. This figure was favorable to budget by $124
Expenses: As of May 31, 2020, the year-to-date expenses totaled $49,354. This figure was unfavorable to the budget by $10,430 -
However, the actual amount is unfavorable by $130 because this amount includes the $10,300.00 for the asphalt repair and mainte-nance done in late April. This is being paid out of our operating funds because we have enough in our operating funds to cover this and in order not to affect our Reserve funds.
The expenses are categorized as follows:
Administrative: $13,849, unfavorable to the budget by $1871 due mostly to the increase in insurance costs per month that was not budgeted to be that high
Building Maintenance: $315, favorable to the budget by $102
Grounds Maintenance: $3,316, favorable to the budget by $4,667 ($10,300 is in this category for the as-phalt repair but removed for this report as noted above)
Utilities: $1060, favorable to the budget by $390.
Reserve transfer: $20,514, favorable to the budget by $3,419.
We plan to do a walk through the week of July 6, 2020 to review the exterior condition of the units. We anticipate at least one more modest exterior maintenance expense besides those listed above this year:
• The paint on the shutters on the front of our homes is starting to peel a bit. The work has yet to be scheduled for the summer or fall. The Board is in the process of getting estimates for touch-up and other painting.
There have been some minor repairs for wind damage for a couple of roofs, and inspections for bat is-sues, but those invoices have not been submitted for payment, yet.
Total Current Assets
As of May 31, 2020, we carried total current assets of $180,356
Our unaudited current assets were distributed as follows:
Operating
Operating Checking – Pacific Premiere Bank $20,170
Visa Debit – Pacific Premiere Bank $ 980
Reserves
Money Market Reserves – Pacific Premiere Bank, 0.20% $71,635
Cert. of Deposit, Academy Bank, $10,628
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(Continued from Page 4)
Cert. of Deposit, Academy Bank, $26,002
Cert. of Deposit, Academy Bank, $50,940
Reserves
We try to manage our reserves by keeping about $20,000 in checking and between $25,000 and
$50,000 in an interest-bearing money market account. When the money market balance exceeds
$50,000, we typically purchase a multi-year CD for $25,000, building a “ladder” of CDs so we keep
our interest income higher, while always maintaining a reasonable amount of short-term maturity
dates.
In addition to interest income, we add about $3,419 to our reserves every month from your HOA
dues. When other expenses run lower than budgeted, we are able to add more to reserves.
According to our Reserve Study, we anticipate two major expenditures from reserves in the next ten
years:
Item(s) Anticipated date Est. cost
Repainting the entire exterior stucco and trim (all homes) 2024-2027 $140k
Re-roofing and re-guttering all the homes 2028-2030 $300k - $400k
You can see how your monthly HOA dues pay current maintenance expenses, insurance, and set
aside a “rainy day fund” for those large expenses we know are coming. This protects the value of
your home investment and helps us reduce risk.
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Welcome our New Community Manager
By Sabrina Lucero, Community Association Manager
I am a Colorado Native but spent the last 8 years in the Pacific Northwest.
I have 2 children ages 19 and 12. My daughter attends Colorado State University and is working on her Pre-Med degree with aspirations of becoming a Neurologist. My son just finished 6
th grade and is deeply interested in
Space Science - specifically Physics.
I graduated from Colorado State University-Pueblo with a degree in Criminology. I spent most of my professional career as a Mental Health Counselor and Case Manag-
er but made the change to HOA Management about 3 years ago.
Aside from working full time and being a full-time mommy, I enjoy spending time with family and friends, exploring the beautiful mountains in our beautiful state and taking my jet skis out any chance I get. I am excited to work with this gor-geous community and looking forward to meeting each one of you at our Annual Meeting.
Continue to contact Hammersmith Community Care and they will answer any questions about dues, etc. That number is 303-980-0700 or emailing them at: [email protected]
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2020 Landscaping and Grounds at Carriages By Jim Stata, Landscaping Chair
(An article focused on watering and irrigation)
Every year the Board sets a budget for watering our landscape. Being in Colorado we have wet and dry summers, so our consumption has varied from year to year. The goal every year is to stay within the budget while still maintaining a good-looking landscape. This year has been more challenging as the sod and plants have not done as well as expected. Lots of our residents have been asking about the plants and lawn areas. Some of the factors that we are up against are:
• New 2020 watering restriction only allowing us to water 3 days a week. No more extra spot watering, which we have done in the past. Each week we have a period of two days without watering.
• Having an unusually windy spring and early summer, which causes drying and stressed turf areas.
• New restrictive hours for watering, limiting time to do a complete watering cycle. • Natural rain has been at 30% of normal. When we get normal amounts of precipitation, it
takes the pressure off the irrigation system as well as saving on our water budget. • Inconsistency in the design of the sprinkler system due to slope, exposure, and uneven
curves. This causes difficulty in getting the right amount of moisture in all areas. • Restrictions from our budget so that we don't overdo the watering early and not have enough
left late in the season. • Sprinkler heads inadvertently getting knocked out of adjustment from mowing and trimming. • Extremely hard and unexpected freezes in early October 2019 and early April 2020.
All this being said, effort is being made to manage and adjust the sprinkler system to minimize some of these factors that we are up against. Thanks to all for your understanding.
Have a great Summer!
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Welcome to Our New Homeowner Neighbors
Several new neighbors moved in in 2020 so far and I wanted to take this
opportunity to welcome them to our community.
• Cynthia Robison, a retired military nurse, moved into her new home at
8443 Castleford Grv.
• Carolyn Jewell, an active military nurse, moved into her new home at
8429 Castleford Grv.
Cynthia and Carolyn are roofmates.
Now that the weather is nice, when you are out and about, please welcome our new homeowner
neighbors to Carriages at Briargate!
Best Wishes to Our Departing Neighbors
We are saddened to see our neighbors leave our community, but wish them all the best!
•Vicky & Ted Rosener
•Bruce & Karen Marr
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Carriages 2020 Calendar of Events By Jan Van Derber & Patricia Kimbrell, co-chairs of the Social Committee
Due to the fact that we are practicing safe precautions based on the Corona virus (COVID-
19), many of our social activities are cancelled or will be determined in the future. Be on
the look out for emails on social events for August to December from the Social Commit-
tee.
Month Social Event Board Meeting
June
First Tuesday of the Month &
Sat, Jun 27, BBQ R&JRanch-1pm
CANCELLED DUE TO COVID-19
July
First Tuesday of the Month
CANCELLED DUE TO COVID-19
August
First Tuesday of the Month &
Sat, Aug 15, Rally in the Alley
TBA
Tues, Aug 4th 6:30pm—8:00pm
Police Dept, 7850 Goddard St.
September
First Tuesday of the Month
TBA
October
First Tuesday of the Month &
Sat, Oct 10, Lunch at La Casa-11:30am
November
First Tuesday of the Month Annual HOA Meeting
Wed, Nov 11th 6:30pm—8:00pm
Challenger Learning Center
8717 Wolf Valley Dr 80924
December First Tuesday of the Month &
Sun, Dec 13, Holiday at Biaggi’s-1:15pm
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Best Wishes By Rhonda Shapiro, Editor
I hope everyone is healthy and doing the best during this trying time. If you are not-
well, I hope that you are on the mend. Please know that I have updated the commu-
nity website with links pertaining to Covid-19 encase you want to keep up with the
information for Colorado and the status.
I have also updated the directory online and emailed a copy to all within the commu-
nity within last week.
I am also keeping the calendar updated online, as well, as within this newsletter.
If I missed anything in the newsletter or there are any corrections that need to be
made, please email me at: [email protected]
Wishing everyone in our community good health. Please stay safe. Know we are all here for one another.
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Classified Ads
Services:
If anyone is interested in
doing occasional care for
one cat when we are
traveling - feeding twice a
day, making sure her wa-
ter levels are good,
brushing once-in-a while,
litter box cleaning twice a
week.
I pay $30 per day ($15 per feeding) - please contact Patti Nelson
at [email protected] or 971-212-9819.
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Contact Information
Sabrina Lucero, Community Manager, Hammersmith Management Incorporated
[email protected] or [email protected]
Patti Nelson, Homeowner, Carriages at Briargate HOA Board of Director President
Witzi Stansberry, Homeowner, Carriages at Briargate HOA Board of Directors Vice President
Rob Fredell, Homeowner, Carriages at Briargate HOA Board of Directors Secretary
Jim Stata, Homeowner, Chair for the Landscape Committee
Jan Van Derber, Homeowner, Co-Chair of Social Committee
Patricia Kimbrell, Homeowner, Co-Chair of Social Committee
Cathy Lenzini, Homeowner, Governing Document Task Force
Linda Nicholos, Homeowner, Budget & Finance Committee, & Carriages at Briargate Website Team,
Governing Document Task Force
Margaret Dreher, Homeowner, Governing Document Task Force
Clarissa Bull, Homeowner, member of Social Committee
Debra (Deb) Sivesind, Homeowner, member of Landscape Committee
Jamie Stata, Homeowner, member of Social Committee
Rhonda Shapiro, Homeowner, Chair for Communications Committee, Editor of Carriages at Briargate
Homeowner’s Newsletter, Webmaster of Carriages at Briargate
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Community Contact Information
Association Manager: Sabrina Lucero, [email protected]
Website: http://www.ehammersmith.com/
Colorado Springs Office: 1155 Kelly Johnson Blvd., Ste. 495, Colorado Springs, CO 80920
Community Website: http://www.carriagesatbriargate.com
Webmaster: Rhonda Shapiro, [email protected]
Contact Us
This is a publication created by the Communications Committee for the homeowners and residents of
Carriages at Briargate. Articles are submitted by community members. The newsletter is published
electronically 3 times a year and is available in printed form if requested.
If you have concerns or comments about the content or would like to submit an article for upcoming
newsletters, please send your comments and submissions to the editor, Rhonda Shapiro,
[email protected]. Volunteers are welcome! Thank you.
